NOWHERE IS THERE mention of who raised the Witness Stones that stand on the hill near Buckkeep. They may very well predate the actual building of Buckkeep Castle itself. Their supposed power seems to have little to do with the worship of Eda or El, but folk believe in it with the same fierce religious fervor. Even those who profess to doubt the existence of any gods at all would still hesitate to give false oath before the Witness Stones. Black and weathered those tall stones stand. If ever they bore inscriptions of any kind, wind and water have erased them.
Verity was the first of the others to rise that morning. He came staggering from his tent as the first true light of day brought color back to the world. "My dragon!" he cried as he stood blinking in the light. "My dragon!" For all the world as if he expected it to be gone.
Even when I assured him his dragon was fine, he was like a spoiled child. He wished to resume his work on it instantly. With the greatest difficulty, I persuaded him to drink a mug of nettle and mint tea, and eat some of the slow-cooked meat from the skewers. He would not wait for the porridge to boil, but left the fire with meat and sword in hand. He did not mention Kettricken at all. In time the scrape, scrape, scrape of the sword's point against the black stone resumed. The shadow I had seen of Verity last night had fled with the morning's coming.
It seemed strange to greet a new day and not immediately pack up all our belongings. No one was in a good humor. Kettricken was puffy-eyed and silent, Kettle sour and reserved. The wolf was still digesting all the meat he had consumed the day before and only wanted to sleep. Starling seemed annoyed with everyone, as if it were our fault that our quest had ended in such confusing disappointment. After we had eaten, Starling declared that she was going to check on the jeppas and do some washing in the stream the Fool had found. Kettle grumpily agreed to go with her for safety, though her eyes strayed often to Verity's dragon. Kettricken was up there also, gloomily watching her husband and king as he gouged away at the black stone. I busied myself in removing the fire-dried meat, wrapping it and refueling the slow fire and putting the rest of the meat to dry over it.
"Let's go," the Fool invited me as soon as I was finished.
"Where?" I asked, thinking longingly of a nap.
"The girl on a dragon," he reminded me. He set off eagerly, not even looking back to see if I followed. He knew I must.
"I think this is a foolish idea," I called after him.
"Exactly," he replied with a grin, and would say no more until we approached the great statue.
The girl on a dragon seemed more quiescent this morning, but perhaps I was merely becoming more accustomed to the trapped Wit-unrest I sensed there. The Fool did not hesitate, but immediately clambered up on the dais beside the statue. I followed more slowly. "She looks different to me today," I said quietly.
"How?"
"I can't say." I studied her bent head, the stone tears frozen on her cheeks. "Does she look different to you?"
"I didn't really look at her that closely yesterday."
Now that we were actually here, the Fool's banter seemed dampened. Very gingerly, I set a hand to the dragon's back. The individual scales were so cunningly worked, the curve of the beast's body so natural that I almost expected it to heave with breath. It was cold, hard stone. I held my breath, daring myself, then quested toward the stone. It felt unlike any questing I had ever done before. There was no beating heart, no rush of breath, nor any other physical sign of life to guide me. There was only my Wit-sense of life, trapped and desperate. For a moment it eluded me; then I brushed against it, and it quested back to me. It sought the feel of wind on skin, the warm pumping of blood, oh, the scents of the summer day, the sensation of my clothing against my skin, any and all that was part of the experience of living it hungered for. I snatched my hand back, frightened by the intensity of its reaching. Almost I thought it might draw me in to join it there.
"Strange," whispered the Fool, for linked to me as he was, he felt the ripples of my experience. His eyes met mine and held for some time. Then he reached a single bare silver fingertip toward the girl.
"We should not do this," I said, but there was no force in my words. The slender figure astride the dragon was dressed in a sleeveless jerkin, leggings and sandals. The Fool touched his finger to her upper arm.
A Skill-scream of pain and outrage filled the quarry. The Fool was flung backward off the pedestal, to land hard on his back on the rock below. He sprawled there senseless. My knees buckled under me and I fell beside the dragon. From the torrent of Wit-anger I felt, I expected the creature to trample me underfoot like a maddened horse. Instinctively I curled up, my arms sheltering my head.
It was done in an instant, yet the echoes of that cry seemed to rebound endlessly from the slick black stone walls and blocks all around us. I was shakily clambering down to check on the Fool when Nighteyes came rushing up to us. What was that? Who threatens us? I knelt by the Fool. He had struck his head and blood was leaking onto the black stone, but I didn't think that was why he was unconscious. "I knew we shouldn't have done it. Why did I let you do it?" I asked myself as I gathered him up to take him back to camp.
"Because you're a bigger fool than he is. And I am the biggest of all, to have left you alone and trusted you to act with sense. What did he do?" Kettle was still puffing from her hurry.
"He touched the girl on the dragon. With the Skill on his finger."
I glanced up at the statue as I spoke. To my horror, there was a bright silver fingerprint on the girl's upper arm, outlined in scarlet against her bronze-toned flesh. Kettle followed my gaze and I heard her gasp. She spun on me and lifted her gnarled hand as if to strike me. Then she clenched her hand into a contorted fist that trembled and forced it down by her side. "Is it not enough that she is trapped there in misery forever, alone and cut off from all she once loved? You two must come to give her pain on top of all that! How could you be so vicious?"
"We meant no harm. We did not know …"
"Ignorance is always the excuse used by the cruelly curious!" Kettle snarled.
My own temper suddenly rose to match hers. "Don't rebuke me with my ignorance, woman, when all you have done is refuse to lift it for me. You hint and warn and give us ominous words, but you refuse to speak anything that might help us. And when we make mistakes, you rail at us, saying we should have known better. How? How can we know better when the one who does refuses to share her knowledge with us?"
In my arms, the Fool stirred faintly. The wolf had been prowling about my feet. Now he came back with a whine to sniff at the Fool's dangling hand.
Careful! Don't let his fingers touch you!
What bit him?
l don't know. "I don't know anything," I said aloud, bitterly. "I'm blundering in the dark, hurting everyone I care about in the process."
"I dare not interfere," Kettle shouted at me. "What if some word of mine set you on the wrong course? What of all the prophecies then? You must find your own way, Catalyst."
The Fool opened his eyes to look at me blankly. Then he closed them again and leaned his head on my shoulder. He was starting to get heavy and I needed to find out what was wrong with him. I shrugged him up more firmly in my arms. I saw Starling coming up behind Kettle, her arms laden with wet laundry. I turned and walked away from them both. As I headed back to camp with the Fool, I said over my shoulder, "Maybe that is why you are here. Maybe you were called here, with a part to play. Maybe it is lifting our ignorance so we can fulfill this bedamned prophecy of yours. And maybe keeping your silence is how you will thwart it. But," and I halted to fling the words savagely over my shoulder, "I think you keep silent for reasons of your own. Because you are ashamed!"
I turned away from the stricken look on her face. I covered my shame to have spoken to her so with my anger. It gave me new strength of purpose. I was suddenly determined that I was going to start making everyone behave as they should. It was the sort of childish resolution that often got me into trouble, but once my heart had seized hold of it, my anger gripped it tight.
I carried the Fool into the big tent and laid him out on his bedding. I took a ragged sleeve off what remained of a shirt, damped it in cool water, and applied it firmly to the back of his head. When the bleeding slowed, I checked it. It was not a large cut, but it was on top of a respectable lump. I still felt that was not why he had fainted. "Fool?" I said to him quietly, then more insistently, "Fool?" I patted his face with water. He came awake with a simple opening of his eyes. "Fool?"
"I'll be all right, Fitz," he said wanly. "You were right. I should not have touched her. But I did. And I shall never be able to forget it."
"What happened?" I demanded.
He shook his head. "I can't talk about it just yet," he said quietly.
I shot to my feet, head slapping against the tent roof and nearly bringing the whole structure down around me. "No one in this whole company can talk about anything!" I declared furiously. "Except me. And I intend to talk about everything."
I left the Fool leaning up on one elbow and staring after me. I don't know if his expression was amused or aghast. I didn't care. I strode from the tent, scrabbled up the pile of tailings to the pedestal where Verity carved his dragon. The steady scrape, scrape, scrape of his sword point against the stone was like a rasp against my soul. Kettricken sat by him, hollow-eyed and silent. Neither paid me the slightest bit of attention.
I halted a moment and got my breathing under control. I swept my hair back from my face and tied my warrior's tail afresh, brushed off my leggings and tugged the stained remnants of my shirt straight. I took three steps forward. My formal bow included Kettricken.
"My lord, King Verity. My lady, Queen Kettricken. I have come to conclude my reporting to the King. If you would allow it."
I had honestly expected both of them to ignore me. But King Verity's sword scraped twice more then ceased. He looked at me over his shoulder. "Continue, FitzChivalry. I shall not cease my work, but I shall listen."
There was grave courtesy in his voice. It heartened me. Kettricken suddenly sat up straighter. She brushed the straggling hair back from her eyes, then nodded her permission at me. I drew a deep breath and began, reporting as I had been taught, everything that I had seen or done since my visit to the ruined city. Sometime during, that long telling, the scraping of the sword slowed, then ceased. Verity moved ponderously to take a seat beside Kettricken. Almost he started to take her hand in his, then stopped himself and folded his own hands before him. But Kettricken saw that small gesture, and moved a trifle closer to him. They sat side by side, my threadbare monarchs, throned on cold rock, a stone dragon at their backs, and listened to me.
By one and by two, the others came to join us. First the wolf, then the Fool and Starling, and finally old Kettle ranged themselves in a half circle behind me. When my throat began to grow dry and my voice to rasp, Kettricken lifted a hand and sent Starling for water. She returned with tea and meat for all of us. I took but a mouthful of the tea and went on while they picnicked around me.
I held to my resolution and spoke plainly of all, even that which shamed me. I did not leave out my fears nor foolishness. I told him how I had killed Regal's guard without warning, even giving him the name of the man I had recognized. Nor did I skirt about my Wit experiences as I once would have. I spoke as bluntly as if it were only Verity and me, telling him of my fears for Molly and my child, including my fear that if Regal did not find and kill them, Chade would take the child for the throne. As I spoke, I reached for Verity in every way I could, not just my voice, but Wit and Skill, I tried to touch him and reawaken him to who he was. I know he felt that reaching, but try as I might, I could stir no response from him.
I finished by recounting what the Fool and I had done with the girl on a dragon. I watched Verity's face for any change of expression, but there was none I could see. When I had told him all, I stood silent before him, hoping he would question me. The old Verity would have taken me over my whole tale again, asking questions about every event, asking what I had thought, or suspected, of anything I had observed. But this gray-headed old man only nodded several times. He made as if to rise.
"My king!" I begged him desperately.
"What is it, boy?"
"Have you nothing to ask me, nothing to tell me?"
He looked at me, but I was not sure he was really seeing me. He cleared his throat. "I killed Carrod with the Skill. That is true. I have not felt the others since then, but I do not believe they are dead, but only that I have lost the Skill to sense them. You must be careful."
I gaped at him. "And that is all? I must be careful?" His words had chilled me to the bone.
"No. There is worse." He glanced at the Fool. "I fear that when you speak to the Fool, he listens with Regal's ears. I fear it was Regal who came to you that day, speaking with the Fool's tongue, to ask you where Molly was."
My mouth went dry. I turned to look at the Fool. He looked stricken. "I do not recall … I never said …" He took a halfbreath, then suddenly toppled to one side in a faint.
Kettle scrabbled over to him. "He breathes," she told us.
Verity nodded. "I suspect they have abandoned him then. Perhaps. Do not trust that is true." His eyes came back to me. I was trying to remain standing. I had felt it as they fled the Fool. Felt it like a silk thread abruptly parting. They had not had a strong hold on him, but it had been enough. Enough to make me reveal all they needed to kill my wife and child. Enough to ransack his dreams each night since then, stealing whatever was of use to them.
I went to the Fool. I took his un-Skilled hand and reached for him. Slowly his eyes opened and he sat up. For a time he stared at us all without comprehension. His eyes came back to mine, shame washing through their smoky depths. " `And the one who loves him best shall betray him most foully.' My own prophecy. I have known that since my eleventh year. Chade, I had told myself, when he was willing to take your child. Chade was your betrayer." He shook his head sadly. "But it was me. It was me." He got slowly to his feet. "I am sorry. So sorry."
I saw the start of tears on his face. Then he turned and walked slowly away from us. I could not bring myself to go after him, but Nighteyes rose soundlessly and trailed at his heels.
"FitzChivalry." Verity took a breath, then spoke quietly. "Fitz, I will try to finish my dragon. It is really all I can do. I only hope it will be enough."
Despair made me bold. "My king, will not you do this for me? Will not you Skill a warning to Burrich and Molly, that they may flee Capelin Beach before they are found?"
"Oh, my boy," he said pityingly. He took a step toward me. "Even if I dared to, I fear I have not the strength any more." He lifted his eyes and looked at each of us in turn. His gaze lingered longest on Kettricken. "It all fails me. My body, my mind, and my Skill. I am so tired, and there is so little left of me. When I killed Carrod, my Skill fled me. My work has been greatly slowed since then. Even the raw power on my hands weakens, and the pillar is closed to me; I cannot pass through it to renew the magic. I fear I may have defeated myself. I fear I will not be able to complete my task. In the end, I may fail you all. All of you, and the entire Six Duchies."
Kettricken bowed her face into her hands. I thought she would weep. But when she lifted her eyes again, I saw the strength of her love for the man shining through whatever else she felt. "If this is what you believe you must do, then let me help you." She gestured at the dragon. "There must be something I can do to help you complete it. Show me where to cut stone away, and then you can work the details."
He shook his head sadly. "Would that you could. But I must do it myself. It all must be done by me."
Kettle suddenly surged to her feet. She came to stand beside me, giving me a glare as if everything were all my fault. "My lord, King Verity," she began. She seemed to lose courage for a moment, then spoke again louder. "My king, you are mistaken. Few dragons were created by a single person. At least, not the Six Duchies dragons. Whatever the others, the true Elderlings could do on their own, I do not know. But I know that those dragons that were made by Six Duchies hands were most often made by an entire coterie working together, not a single person."
Verity stared at her mutely. Then, "What are you saying?" he demanded in a shaking voice.
"I am saying what I know. Regardless of how others may come to think of me." She gave one glance around at us, as if bidding us farewell. Then she put her back to us and addressed only the King. "My lord king. I name myself Kestrel of Buck, once of Stanchion's Coterie. But by my Skill I did slay a member of my own coterie, for jealousy over a man. To do so was high treason, for we were the Queen's own strength. And I destroyed that. For this I was punished as the Queen's Justice saw fit. My Skill was burned out of me, leaving me as you see me; sealed into myself, unable to reach beyond the walls of my own body, unable to receive the touch of those I had held dear. That was done by my own coterie. For the murder itself, the Queen banished me from the Six Duchies, for all time. She sent me away so that no Skilled one would be tempted to take pity on me and try to free me. She said she could imagine no worse punishment, that one day in my isolation I would long for death." Kettle sank slowly to her old knees on the hard stone. "My king, my queen, she was right. I ask your mercy now. Either put me to death. Or …" Very slowly she lifted her head. "Or use your strength to reopen me to the Skill. And I will serve you as coterie in the carving of this dragon."
All was silence for a time. When Verity spoke, it was in confusion. "I know of no Stanchion's Coterie."
Kettle's voice shook as she admitted, "I destroyed it, my lord. There were but five of us. My act left only three alive to the Skill, and they had experienced the physical death of one member and the … burning of myself. They were greatly weakened. I heard that they were released from their service to the Queen, and sought the road that once began in Jhaampe town. They never returned, but I do not think they survived the rigors of this road. I do not think they ever made a dragon such as we once used to dream about."
When Verity spoke, he did not seem to be replying to her words. "Neither my father nor either of his wives had coteries sworn to them. Nor my grandmother." His brow wrinkled. "Which queen did you serve, woman?"
"Queen Diligence, my king," Kettle said quietly. She was still kneeling on the hard stone.
"Queen Diligence reigned over two hundred years ago," Verity observed.
"She died two hundred twenty-three years ago," Starling interposed.
"Thank you, minstrel," Verity said dryly. "Two hundred twenty-three years ago. And you would have me believe you were coterie to her."
"I was, my lord. I had turned my Skill upon myself, for I wished to keep my youth and beauty. It was not regarded as an admirable thing to do, but most Skilled ones did it to some extent. It took me over a year to master my body. But what I had done, I did well. To this day, I heal swiftly. Most illnesses pass me by." She could not keep a note of pride from her voice.
"The legendary longevity of the coterie members," King Verity observed softly to himself. He sighed. "There must have been much in Solicity's books that Chivalry and I were never made privy to."
"A great deal." Kettle spoke with more confidence now. "It amazes me that, with as little training as you and FitzChivalry have, you have managed to come this far alone. And to carve a dragon alone? It is a feat for a song."
Verity glanced back at her. "Oh, come, woman, sit down. It pains me to see you kneel. Obviously there is much you can and should tell me." He shifted restlessly and glanced back at his dragon. "But while we are talking, I am not working."
"Then I shall say to you only what needs most to be said," Kettle offered. She clambered painfully to her feet. "I was powerful in the Skill. Strong enough to kill with it, as few are." Her voice halted, thickening. She took a breath and resumed. "That power is still within me. One strongly Skilled enough could open me to it again. I believe you have that strength. Though right now, you may not be able to master it. You have killed with the Skill, and that is a heinous thing. Even though the coterie member was not true to you, still, you had worked together. In killing him, you killed a part of yourself. And that is why you feel you have no Skill left to you. Had I my Skill, I could help you heal yourself."
Verity gave a small laugh. "I have no Skill, you have no Skill, but if we did, we could heal one another. Woman, this is like a tangle of rope with no ends. How is the knot to be undone, save with a sword?"
"We have a sword, my king. FitzChivalry. The Catalyst."
"Ah. That old legend. My father was fond of it." He looked at me consideringly. "Do you think he is strong enough? My nephew August was Skill-burned and never recovered. For him, I sometimes thought it a mercy. The Skill was leading him down a path ill-suited to him. I think I suspected then that Galen had done something to the coterie. But I had so much to do. Always so much to do."
I sensed my king's mind wavering. I stepped forward resolutely. "My lord, what is it you wish me to attempt?"
"I wish you to attempt nothing. I wish you to do. There. That is what Chade often said to me. Chade. Most of him is in the dragon now, but that is a bit I left out. I should put that in the dragon."
Kettle stepped closer to him. "My lord, help me to free my Skill. And I will help you to fill the dragon."
There was something in the way she said those words. She spoke them aloud before us all, yet I felt that only Verity truly knew what she said. At last, very reluctantly, he nodded. "I see no other way," he said to himself. "No other way at all."
"How am I to do a thing, when I don't even know what that thing is?" I complained. "My king," I added, at a rebuking look from Kettricken.
"You know as much as we do," Verity rebuked me quietly. "Kestrel's mind was burned with the Skill, by her own coterie, to condemn her to isolation for the rest of her life. You must use what Skill you have in any way you can, to try to break through the scarring."
"I have no idea how to begin," I began. But then Kettle turned and looked at me: There was pleading in her old eyes. Loss, and loneliness. And Skill-hunger that had built to the point at which it was devouring her from within. Two hundred and twenty-three years, I thought to myself. It was a long time to be exiled from one's homeland. An impossible time to be confined to one's own body. "But I will try," I amended my words. I put out my hand to her.
Kettle hesitated, then set her hand in mine. We stood, clasping hands, looking at one another. I reached for her with the Skill, but felt no response. I looked at her and tried to tell myself I knew her, that it should be easy to reach Kettle. I ordered my mind and recalled all I knew of the irascible old woman. I thought of her uncomplaining perseverance, of her sharp tongue, and her clever hands. I recalled her teaching me the Skill game, and how often we had played it, heads bent together over the gamecloth. Kettle, I told myself sternly. Reach for Kettle. But my Skill found nothing there.
I did not know how much time had passed. I only knew that I was very thirsty. "I need a cup of tea," I told her, and let go of her hand. She nodded at me, keeping her disappointment well hidden. It was only when I let go her hand that I became aware of how the sun had moved above the mountaintops. I heard again the scrape, scrape, scrape of Verity's sword. Kettricken still sat, silently watching him. I did not know where the others had gone. Together we left the dragon and walked down to where our fire still smoldered. I broke wood into pieces as she filled the kettle. We said little as it heated. There were still herbs that Starling had gathered earlier for tea. They were wilted, but we used them, and then sat drinking our tea together. The scraping of Verity's sword against the stone was a background noise, not unlike an insect sound. I studied the old woman beside me.
My Wit-sense told me of a strong and lively life within her. I had felt her old woman's hand in my own, the flesh soft on the swollen, bony fingers save where work had callused her skin. I saw the lines in her face around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Old, her body said to me. Old. But my Wit-sense told me that there sat a woman of my own years, lively and wild-hearted, yearning for love and adventure and all that life might offer. Yearning; but trapped. I willed myself to see, not Kettle, but Kestrel. Who had she been before she had been buried alive? My eyes met hers. "Kestrel?" I asked her suddenly.
"So I was," she said quietly, and her grief was still fresh. "But she is no more, and has not been for years."
When I said her name, I had almost sensed her. I felt I held the key, but did not know where the lock was. There was a nudge at the edge of my Wit. I looked up, annoyed at the interruption. It was Nighteyes and the Fool. The Fool looked tormented and I ached for him. But he could not have picked a worse time to come to speak to me. I think he knew it.
"I tried to stay away," he said quietly. "Starling told me what you were doing. She told me all that was said while I was gone. I know I should wait, that what you do is vital. But … I cannot." He suddenly had trouble meeting my eyes. "I betrayed you," he whispered softly. "I am the Betrayer."
Linked as we were, I knew the depth of his feelings. I tried to reach through that, to make him feel what I felt. He had been used against me, yes, but it was no doing of his own. But I could not reach him. His shame, guilt, and remorse stood between us, and blocked him from my forgiveness. Blocked him, too, from forgiving himself.
"Fool!" I suddenly exclaimed. I smiled at him. He looked horrified that I could smile at all, least of all at him. "No, it is all right. You have given me the answer. You are the answer." I took a breath and tried to think carefully. Go slowly, be careful, I cautioned myself, and then, No, I thought. Now. Now is the only time in which to do this. I bared my left wrist. I held it out to him, my palm up. "Touch me," I commanded him. "Touch me with the Skill on your fingers, and see if I feel you have betrayed me."
"No!" Kettle cried, aghast, but the Fool was already reaching for me like a man in a dream. He took my hand in his right hand. Then he laid three silver fingertips against my upturned wrist. As I felt the cold burn of his fingers on my wrist, I reached over and grabbed Kettle's hand. "KESTREL!" I cried aloud. I felt the stir of her, and I pulled her into us.
I was the Fool and the Fool was me. He was the Catalyst and so was I. We were two halves of a whole, sundered and come together again. For an instant I knew him in his entirety, complete and magical, and then he was pulling apart from me laughing, a bubble inside me, separate and unknowable, yet joined to me. You do love me! I was incredulous. He had never truly believed it before. Before, it was words. I always feared it was born of pity. But you are truly my friend. This is knowing. This is feeling what you feel for me. So this is the Skill. For a moment he reveled in simple recognition.
Abruptly, another joined us. Ah, little brother, you find your ears at last! My kill is ever your kill, and we shall be pack forever!
The Fool recoiled at the wolf's friendly onslaught. I thought he would break the circle. Then suddenly he leaned into it. This? This is Nighteyes? This mighty warrior, this great heart?
How to describe that moment? I had known Nighteyes so completely for so long, it shocked me to see how little the Fool had known of him.
Hairy? That was how you saw me? Hairy and drooling?
Your pardon. This from the Fool, quite sincerely. I am honored to know you as you are. I had never suspected such nobility within you. Their mutual approval was almost overwhelming.
Then the world settled around us. We have a task, I reminded them. The Fool lifted his touch from my wrist, leaving behind three silver prints on my skin. Even the air pressed too heavily against that mark. For a time, I had been somewhere else. Now I was once more within my own body. It all had taken but moments.
I turned back to Kettle. It was an effort to look only through my eyes. I still gripped her hand. "Kestrel?" I said quietly. She lifted her gaze to mine. I looked at her and tried to see her as she had once been. I do not think she even knew then of that tiny hair of Skill between us. In the moment of her shock at the Fool touching me, I had pressed past her guard. It was too fine a line to be called a thread. But I now knew what choked it. "All this guilt and shame and remorse you carry, Kestrel. Don't you see? That is what they burned you with. And you have added to it, all these years. The wall is of your own making. Take it down. Forgive yourself. Come out."
I caught at the Fool's wrist and held him beside me. Somewhere I felt Nighteyes as well. They were back within their own minds, but I could reach them easily. I drew strength from them, carefully, slowly. I drew their strength and love and turned it against Kettle, trying to force it into her through that tiny chink in her armor.
Tears began to trickle down her seamed cheeks. "I can't. That is the hardest part. I can't. They burned me to punish me. But it was not enough. It would never be enough. I can never forgive myself."
Skill was starting to seep from her as she reached to me, trying to make me understand. She reached, to clasp my hand between both of hers. Her pain flowed through that clasp to me. "Who could forgive you then?" I found myself asking.
"Gull. My sister Gull!" The name was torn from her, and I sensed she had refused to think of it, let alone utter it, for years. Her sister, not just her coterie-mate, but her sister. And she had killed her in a fury when she had found her with Stanchion. The leader of the coterie?
"Yes," she whispered, though no words were needed between us now. I was past the burn wall. Strong, handsome Stanchion. Making love to him, body and Skill, an experience of oneness like no other. But then she had come upon them, him and Gull, together, and she had …"
"He should have known better," I cried out indignantly. "You were sisters and members of his own coterie. How could he have done that to you? How could he?"
"Gull!" she cried out loud, and for an instant I saw her. She was behind a second wall. Both of them were. Kestrel and Gull. Two little girls, running barefoot down a sandy shore, just out of reach of the icy waves licking up the sand. Two little girls, as like as apple pips, their father's joy, twins, racing to meet the little boat coming in to shore, hurrying to see what Papa had caught in his nets today. I smelled the salt wind, the iodine of the tangled, squidgy kelp as they dashed through it squealing. Two little girls, Gull and Kestrel, locked and hidden behind a wall inside her. But I could see them even if she could not.
I see her, I know her. And she knew you, through and through. Lightning and thunder, your mother called you, for while your temper flashed and was gone, Gull could carry a grudge for weeks. But not against you, Kestrel. Never against you, and not for years. She loved you, more than either of you loved Stanchion. As you loved her. And she would have forgiven you. She would never have wished this on you.
I … don't know.
Yes, you do. Look at her. Look at you. Forgive yourself. And let the part of her within you live again. Let yourself live again.
She is within me?
Most certainly. I see her, I feel her. It must be so.
What do you feel? Cautiously.
Only love. See for yourself. I took her deep inside her mind, to the places and memories she had denied to herself. It was not the burn walls her coterie had imposed on her that had hurt her most. It was the ones she had put up between herself and the memory of what she had lost in a moment of fury. Two girls, older now, wading out to seize the line their father threw to them, and helping to pull his laden boat up onto the beach. Two Buck girls, still as alike as apple pips, wanting to be the first ones to tell their Papa they had been chosen for Skilltraining.
Papa said we were one soul in two bodies.
Open, then, and let her out. Let both of you out to live.
I fell silent, waiting. Kestrel was in a part of her memories she had denied for longer than other folk lived. A place of fresh wind and girlish laughter, and a sister so like yourself you scarcely needed to speak to one another. The Skill had been between them from the moment they were born.
I see what I must do now. I felt her overwhelming surge of joy and determination. I must let her out, I must put her into the dragon. She will live forever in the dragon, just as we planned it. The two of us, together again.
Kettle stood up, letting go of my hands so suddenly that I cried out at the shock. I found myself back in my body. I felt I had fallen there from a very great distance. The Fool and Nighteyes were still near me, but no longer a part of a circle. I could scarcely feel them for all else I felt. Skill. Racing through me like a riptide. Skill. Emanating from Kettle like heat from a smith's furnace. She glowed with it. She wrung her hands, smiled at the straightened fingers.
"You should go and rest now, Fitz," she told me gently. "Go on. Go to sleep."
A gentle suggestion. She did not know her own Skillstrength. I lay back and knew no more.
When I awoke, it was full dark. The weight and warmth of the wolf's body were comfortable against me. The Fool had tucked a blanket around me and was sitting by me, staring raptly into the fire. When I stirred, he clutched at my shoulder with a sharp intake of breath.
"What?" I demanded. I could make no sense of anything I heard or saw. Fires had been kindled up on the stone dais beside the dragon. I heard the clash of metal against stone, and voices lifted in conversation. In the tent behind me, I heard Starling trying notes on her harp.
"The last time I saw you sleep like that, we had just taken an arrow out of your back and I thought you were dying of infection."
"I must have been very tired," I smiled at him, able to trust he understood. "Are not you wearied? I took strength from you and Nighteyes."
"Tired? No. I feel healed." He did not hesitate, but added, "I think it is as much that the false coterie has fled my body, as knowing that you do not hate me. And the wolf. Now, he is a wonder. Almost, I can still sense him." A very strange smile touched his face. I felt him groping out for Nighteyes. He had not the strength to truly use the Skill or the Wit on his own. But it was unnerving to feel him try. Nighteyes let his tail rise and fall in one slow wag.
I'm sleepy.
Rest then, my brother. I set my hand to the thick fur of his shoulder. He was life and strength and friendship I could trust. He gave one more slow wag to his tail and lowered his head again. I looked back to the Fool and gave a nod toward Verity's dragon.
"What goes on, up there?"
"Madness. And joy. I think. Save for Kettricken. I think her heart eats itself hollow with jealousy, but she will not leave."
"What goes on up there?" I repeated patiently.
"You know more of it than I do," he retorted. "You did something to Kettle. I could understand part of it, but not all. Then you fell asleep. And Kettle went up there and did something to Verity. I know not what, but Kettricken said it left them both weeping and shaking. Then Verity did something to Kettle. And they both began to laugh and to shout and to cry out it would work. I stayed long enough to watch both of them start attacking the stone around the dragon with chisels and mallets and swords and anything else that was to hand. While Kettricken sits silent as a shadow and watches them mournfully. They will not let her help. Then I came down here and found you unconscious. Or asleep. Whichever you prefer. And I have sat here a long time, watching over you and making tea or taking meat to anyone who yells at me for some. And now you are awake."
I recognized his parody of me reporting to Verity, and had to smile. I decided that Kettle had helped Verity unlock his Skill and that work was proceeding on the dragon. But Kettricken. "What makes Kettricken sad?" I asked.
"She wishes she were Kettle," the Fool explained, in a tone that said any moron would have known that. He handed me a plate of meat and a mug of tea. "How would you feel, to have come this long and weary way, only to have your spouse choose another to help him in his work? He and Kettle chatter back and forth like magpies. All sorts of inconsequential talk. They work and chip, or sometimes, Verity just stands still, his hands pressed to the dragon. And he tells her of his mother's cat, Hisspit, and of thyme that grew in the garden on the tower. And all the while, Kettle speaks to him, with no break, of Gull who did this, and Gull who did that, and all she and Gull did together. I thought they would cease when the sun went down, but that was the only time that Verity seemed to recall Kettricken was alive. He asked her to bring firewood and make fires for light. Oh, and I think he has allowed her to sharpen a chisel or two for him."
"And Starling," I said stupidly. I did not like to think of what Kettricken must be feeling. I reined my thoughts away from it.
"She works on a song about Verity's dragon. I think she has given up on you and me ever doing anything of note."
I smiled to myself. "She is never about when I do anything of significance. What we wrought today, Fool, was better than any battle I have ever fought. But she will never understand all of that." I cocked my head toward the yurt. "Her harp sounds mellower than I recall it," I said to myself.
In answer, he lifted his eyebrows and waggled his fingers at me.
My eyes, widened. "What have you been doing?" I demanded.
"Experimenting. I think that if I survive all this, my puppets shall be the stuff of legend. I have always been able to look at wood and see what I wished to call forth. These," and again he waggled his fingers at me, "make it so much easier."
"Be cautious," I pleaded with him.
"Me? I have no caution within me. I cannot be what I am not. Where are you going?"
"Up to see the dragon," I replied. "If Kettle can work on it, so can I. I may not be as strongly Skilled, but I've been linked with Verity for far longer."